Tag: swimming

Small Ones

June 15, 2016 / DB

A few random notes.

Swimming

The girls swim season is off to a solid start. L moved up an age group this year, and is now swimming full, 25-yard lengths of the pool instead of the 6-and-under, 12-yard lengths. It’s been a good challenge for her. We were especially proud of her last night. The team we were swimming against has a family that we’ve had a minor conflict with over the years. Nothing serious, silly neighbor stuff, but they’re also not a family we want to spend any time with. L was matched up with their daughter, who coincidentally was born on the exact same day, in the backstroke. And L freaking smoked her! It was probably L’s best backstroke swim ever; she only hit the lane divider once and that didn’t slow her down at all. And she scored one for the family in the process!

C and M are both doing fine. They’re in the age groups where the kids who swim year-round really begin to separate themselves. So the only time our girls swim in heat one is in relays if there aren’t enough girls for two heats. But they’re having fun.

Euro 2016

I didn’t get to start watching games until Monday, but I’m enjoying having soccer on ESPN all day. This triple-header stuff during the group phase is fantastic. I watched every minute of Belgium-Italy and was thrilled with how the Azzurri played. Just a fantastic effort in taking out one of the tournament favorites in a year not much was expected from the Italians.

I was able to watch a good chunk of Iceland-Portugal yesterday before swimming. It was magical watching the Iceland fans sing their national anthem. Those were some happy folks! They got even happier when their side tied the heavy favorites in the second half on a beautiful goal by Birkir Bjarnason. Even better was noted ass Christiano Ronaldo complaing about the Icelanders celebration after the game. Some folks have suggested that he’s doing a Kobe and playing up his image as the villain. I don’t buy it. I think he’s genuinely a selfish, shallow person who was bothered that a country playing in its first-ever major tournament were excited about earning a draw against one of the best teams in the world.

Speaking of magical, former German national and Arsenal goaltender Jens Lehmann posted this video from Paris.

What a magic! I’m saying that constantly for the next month.

I’m very much looking forward to the ancestral battle tomorrow, as Wales battle England. When it comes to my ancestry, I’m pretty watered-down. I believe most of Northern Europe is in my blood. If I did an exhaustive tracing of my roots, I have a feeling I might be more French than anything else. Which is terrible to consider. But my last name came from Wales, so I generally call myself Welsh.[1] Since I generally dislike the English national team, I’ll be rooting extra hard against them tomorrow.

Big Events

A couple huge world events have passed without any comment from me. The first, the death of Muhammad Ali, came while we were on vacation. Because of that, I missed much of the coverage that followed. I did learn of his death in the most old school manner possible: the next morning I went for a walk around the Fenway area and, passing through our hotel lobby, saw the complimentary copies of the Boston Globe that had the new written in huge typeface above the fold. I had shut down the old Twitter machine roughly 15 minutes before the news broke the previous night.

Anyway, I did not grow up loving Ali. I had an odd, contrarian streak in me even as a very young kid. If things seemed to be loved by all, I went the opposite way. I hated the Beatles growing up because my parents and all their friends loved them. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I finally acknowledged the Beatles are the best band ever.[2]

My dislike of Ali came later, as my parents weren’t big boxing fans. I just remember when I first learned about him hearing how he was “The Champ,” was aging, and that a lot of people thought he shouldn’t be fighting anymore. So I decided I didn’t like him, without knowing anything about him. I remember waking up and hearing that he had lost to Leon Spinks in 1978. This was huge news where we lived, in southeast Missouri, since Spinks was from the St. Louis area. I was thrilled that a local kid had topped the aging icon.

Over the years, I slowly learned more about Ali and came to admire him. But he wasn’t like a big part of my life or anything. This was a moment that was obviously coming based on his age and his disease, so it wasn’t much of a shock. If anything, it came as a relief, as Parkinson’s is a mutherfucker.

Like so many public figures, Ali was a complex dude. For every thing I admire about him, there are also aspects of his life that make me cringe. But I’ve always measured people on the concept of balance. I think Ali did more good and worthy of praise than bad and worthy of scorn.

The Red Sox game I attended was the day after his death, and the team offered a moment of silence in Ali’s honor. In the brief accounting of his life, the PA announcer pointed out that Ali rose from the streets of Louisville to the most recognizable man in the world. That’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it?

Second, Orlando. There is no correct word to use to describe my reaction, or feelings. Because we’ve used them all before. Like the “thoughts and prayers” our elected leaders keep offering after mass shootings, saying I’m shocked, devastated, furious, depressed, etc by the latest one does nothing.

We keep being shocked, devastated, furious, depressed, and offering thoughts and prayers, but nothing changes. This will happen again in a week. Or month if we’re lucky. But this is the world we’ve chosen. This is what happens when guns are not viewed as a symbol of freedom, but as freedom itself. This is what happens when a minority of the country views a document written before the discovery of electricity, before radio and TV, before we landed on the moon, hell, before we freed the slaves, as something that can not be altered. A document written when our weapons were slow to load, difficult to aim, and unreliable. Not when weapons spit out highly accurate, incredibly destructive ammunition at the rate of dozens per minute.

It is possible to have reasonable conversations about guns. I don’t like guns, but I don’t think that people who have been trained to use them shouldn’t have access to handguns or hunting rifles. But there is no reasonable argument for allowing the general public to have weapons created for the sole purpose of killing or wounding the greatest number of enemy soldiers as quickly as possible. Not one. Yet suggesting that we get rid of assault rifles and ban ammunition designed for warfare is seen as an idea that will cripple the core concepts our country is formed on by enough people in power to keep it from ever happening. If Sandy Hook didn’t change anything, nothing ever will.

Which, I should point out, I – and much of my family – thought we were actually German until the 1990s, when an uncle did some research and discovered our family came from Wales rather than Germany. I’ve also got Irish and Danish blood in me. ↩
Please note not my favorite. That would be the Clash. But the Beatles are in my top 5. ↩

Summer Notes

July 22, 2015 / DB

Some catch up on general summer notes.

Monday was our annual trip to the 4H fair where the girls’ cousin shows pigs every year. As usual, they had fun walking through the buildings and viewing the pigs, cows, goats, sheep, and rabbits. No poultry this year because of the avian flu thing and the horses were not shown on Monday, so it wasn’t quite as comprehensive a view of farm animals as in the past. We laughed because we clearly look like city people. As we walked through the stalls, kids would come over to our girls and ask, “Do you want to pet them?” and open the gate to their pen so the girls could get right in with the animals.

M. also had her annual visit with Megan the goat, who we first saw as a baby four years ago and is now a momma goat.

Their cousin earned first and third place ribbons before we got there, and when we saw him in the Showmanship part of the day, he advanced to the finals.

The girls also got their picture taken with the Fair Queen. A girl my sister-in-law watches who hung out with the girls went running over to the Queen because “I know her!” When the Queen had a break in her ribbon handing out activities, she posed for a picture with the girls. M. and C. were kind of starstruck, not because she was a “queen,” but rather because she was really pretty and had very distinctive, pale blue eyes. “Did you see her eyes? They were so pretty!” L. wasn’t as awed but just thought it was cool the Queen took time to say hi to them.

Our last swim meet was two weeks ago, but the season officially wrapped up last week with the awards banquet. We nearly skipped it, as that was the night of our backyard campout. We were glad we went, though. After final ribbons and team pictures were handed out, there were a few awards for each age group. M. won Most Improved Swimmer for the girls 9–10 group. She was pretty proud, as was I. She really worked hard this summer, which I hope is a good thing. She isn’t always one to rise to an athletic challenge[1] but certainly did so this summer. One of my highlights of the break was seeing her win an individual heat back in June.

The girls came up with their first grand plan of the summer over the weekend.

They were playing with the neighbors when a dog from a block away wandered into our yard. The group grabbed a leash and walked it back home. By the time they had returned, the five of them had cooked up quite a plan: they were going to start a dog walking business and donate the proceeds to charity. Not just that, though. In order to raise funds for the supplies they would need to walk dogs, they were going to set up a lemonade stand.

Neighbor dad and I opened another beer and began peppering them with questions. How much did they need to earn to start the dog walking service? How much would lemonade supplies cost? How much would they sell the lemonade for? What charity would they donate the money to? How long would each dog walk last? Who were their potential clients? And so on.

None of the questions phased the girls. Rather, they just got more excited. By the end of the evening they had found ways to trim their opening capital needs and ditched the idea of financing it through a lemonade stand. They had printed up a flyer, come up with a name for their business (which has already changed twice), and decided their charity would be the local Humane Society.

We’ve been in a holding pattern since then. So we’ll see.

M. assumed the role of treasurer and brought home a box of change they all contributed to the cause. She counts the money twice a day and records it on a ledger, just to make sure it’s all there.

Finally, perhaps my favorite moment of the summer so far. There’s a cool park in our general vicinity we hit a few times each break. It has a small splash park, a decent-sized playground, football fields, a long trail, and a Frisbee golf course. It’s a great spot to go without plans and see what the girls want to do.

Anyway, last month we were there and I noticed a boy was throwing the football around with his mom. Not something you see everyday, but alone not worth mentioning. As I was keeping an eye on my girls, I thought I saw something odd, though, from the mom. So I kept my eyes on her. Sure enough, every few throws, she’d lick her fingers before she threw another ball, just like Dan Marino. And she had a pretty good arm too. Each throw was a perfect spiral with some heat on it.

I just thought the finger-licking thing was great. You don’t see many dads licking their fingers before each throw when they’re just tossing the ball around with their kids. I loved that there was a mom who wasn’t satisfied with just lobbing easy balls for her eight-year-old to catch. She needed some grip so she could fire that sucker!

Along those lines, after going on one, short run through the neighborhood with me last week, she decided she had no interest in cross country this fall. So we signed her up for kickball for the fall. ↩

Weather And Swimming

June 30, 2015 / DB

I think we’ve officially reached the point where I can say that this is a weird ass summer. At least weather-wise and so far. We are in week three of consistent storms, cloudy skies, and crazy temperature swings. First, we had a cool week. Then a very warm week where we had thick, nasty, Kansas City/St. Louis/Cincinnati humidity. And now it’s back to being relatively cool and overcast. Last week was one huge thunderstorm after another. Friday things got so bad that everyone’s iPhones screamed at them that we were in a flash flood warning. Roads were under water, rivers out of their banks, and other nonsense.

All that has combined to keep the girls inside a lot. It’s either been too wet, too hot and sticky, or just dreary and unappealing.

But here’s the thing: as annoyed as I have been with the weather, I’m hoping for one more night of storms tonight. We have a swim meet scheduled for the evening. We found out last night the team we’re swimming against has nearly 150 swimmers. Last Thursday we ripped through our meet in exactly three hours, which is awesome. But that was with maybe 120 combined swimmers. And since this is one of my required volunteer nights [1], I’ll be stuck on the deck from 5:00 until the last relay is complete. If it storms and they decide not only to call off the meet, but also cancel it since the holiday weekend means many folks will be busy or traveling over the weekend, I will not be disappointed at all.

Is that wrong?

Getting back to last week’s meet, it was a big night for M.. She’s gotten so much better this year. Her form is really good on several strokes. She actually looks competent when you watch her from the deck! But she is still rather slow and does not have the best stamina in the pool. When she hits the ¾ mark of a lap, you can almost see the energy draining from her body.

I love her enthusiasm and how she enjoys being part of the team. But I was both pleased and saddened a little bit when she stated her goal was not to finish last in her heats anymore. I was proud of the self-awareness that showed, and the way she set attainable goals. It hurt, though, to hear her acknowledging that she knew she wasn’t very fast. I mean, it’s kind of obvious, and she’s a smart, almost 11-year-old. I would have preferred she still ask me if she won her heats when she finished well after the other three swimmers.

I was timing last week,[2] and she was always two lanes over from me. When she swam, I kept one eye on her and one on my lane. Her starts tend to be slow, putting her in a hole from the beginning, so when she emerged from her jump well behind her three competitors in the butterfly, I shook my head and concentrated on my lane. When the swimmers reached the halfway point, I noticed M. had gained a ton of ground. It was basically a four-way tie. I started paying closer attention to her lane. The girls all surged and faded. With five yards to go, M. seemed to be in the lead, but my angle was bad and it was hard to tell. Worst, the girl in my lane was the closest to her so I had to pay close attention to my watch. I kept checking each lane, willing the other girls to take an extra breath or for M. to not take that last breath that would slow her down. I leaned way out, craned my neck to the left, and saw M. touch at least a second before the next girl. Not only did she win her heat, she did so in the toughest stroke!

When she hopped out of the pool I yelled at her, “M., great swim!” She said thanks and started to walk away. I called her back. “M., you won!” Her jaw dropped, her eyes went wide, and she said, “I won? Really?”

“Yes, that was awesome!”

She smiled proudly and darted away.

The night got better when her freestyle relay won their heat as well. At Friday morning’s practice, when ribbons get handed out, she came back with her first two blue ribbons.

The other two girls are doing about what you would expect. L. usually swims in heat 2, and can finish anywhere from first to fourth, depending on who she swims against and how many times she bumps into the lane lines.

C. is a bundle of unfocused energy. We realized about a week ago that she doesn’t breath when she swims freestyle until she’s halfway through a pool-length. And then she spends the last half of that length gasping for air, breathing on both sides as she flings her arms forward. Sometimes she kicks ass. Sometimes she finishes after the other three girls are out of the pool because her head has been out of the water and slowing her down for 10 yards.

If you could take M.’s form and combine it with C.’s energy, you’d have a pretty good swimmer. In other words, that’s what L. is going to be in another two years. She already is the only one who can do perfect entry dives to begin a race. She revels in competition and being physical. Like soccer, I think she’s going to lap her sisters before too long.

Our swim team requires that parents volunteer in at least three meets to time keep, manage the course, write on ribbons, etc. Had I known how big this meet was, I really would have picked a different meet for one of my shifts. ↩

Man does it annoy me that we time every heat. First off, heats are hand-timed, so they’re inconsistent to begin with. Then I’ve noticed a lot of starters aren’t terribly accurate with their stopwatches. Finally, most teams do not post the finish times for all competitors. Instead of having two volunteers in each lane to time and record each swimmer, all they need are a parent from each team that stand together and call the finish order. That’s 8–16 fewer volunteers (depending on the pool and shifts) needed. ↩

Change of Seasons

June 17, 2015 / DB

The Stanley Cup playoffs ended Monday night and the NBA Finals wrapped up last night.¹ Winter sports are finally over! Our family’s sports are in transition, too.

Softball finally came to an end last week, albeit an earlier-than-expected one. C.’s team dropped their opening game of the tournament by four runs. They were down by 10 runs early, cut it to one in the 5th, but had the wrong part of the lineup up in the 6th and couldn’t get over the hump. It was a bummer because they had pounded the team they lost to two of the three times they played in the regular season. But, to be honest, I think a lot of the parents were not too upset that the season ended.

C. had a mixed night, too. She went 3-6 the three strikeouts. But she made two fine plays in the field. On one, she was playing third and the pitcher’s helper threw her the ball trying to get a force out. C. got her foot on the bag, stretched for the throw, and somehow hung onto it. After the umpire signaled “Out,” C. looked around it utter, delighted, disbelief that she had held onto the ball.

She really enjoyed playing her first year of softball. I didn’t start keeping track of her hitting stats until several games into the season, but by my unofficial count, she went 34-44 over the last two-thirds of the season. She had a 17 at-bat streak without making an out. She had a 6-7 game. She began the year deep into the lineup and ended the year hitting cleanup. Not bad for never having played before.

Two nights later the girls had their first swim meet of the year, an intrasquad meet to get times in the book for putting kids in the proper heats going forward. L. won two of her races, and would have won the backstroke too if she hadn’t stopped three times and looked to see how far she had to go. But winning is relative in Under 6; she may have had a year on some of the kids she swam against.

M. and C. are in the same age group this year. With only their team on the deck, that presented chances for them to swim against and with each other. In the butterfly, they were in the same heat with one lane between them. When they realized they would be swimming against each other, M. got a goofy grin on her face and C. started talking smack about how she was going to beat her big sister. In her eagerness, C. jumped in well before the starting beep. She didn’t hesitate, though, and built a quick lead on M. even as the other two swimmers left them behind. M. slowly closed the distance and they touched the wall together. A tie for last! Good times!

The girls also swam, together in the freestyle relay. M. led off with C. second. As M. approached the wall, C. waved her arms for her to swim faster. Then, when M. touched, C. just stood there and talked to her. After about five seconds she realized she had to swim, too, and jumped in. Fortunately legs three and four were fast girls and they salvaged third place.

Our first real meet is tomorrow, weather permitting. And Mother Nature has been kind of a bitch lately, so odds are it will either storm and rain the meet out, or be oppressively hot and humid. Or both.

Doesn’t hockey start training camp in another week or so? ↩

Swim Until Exhaustion

June 9, 2015 / DB

The first full weekend of summer is in the books. Let’s go back a couple days to our first two days of summer vacation, last Thursday and Friday.

Nothing too exciting on the agenda either day. Some bike rides, softball hitting practice in the street, hanging out with a visiting aunt, a trip to the library. And the girls first two full swim practices of the summer.

Recall that we switched to a different swim team this year. This one is slightly closer to our home, although the one from last summer was less than 10 minutes away. But we heard the new one is a little better organized. They also swim the kids harder than our last pool. L. and C. did fine. L.’s swimming a little longer distances than she did last year, but it’s still well within her capabilities. Same for C.. They’re both tired after practice but are also able to run around and play afterward.

But poor M., with a double-digit age, moved up an age group. And she’s kind of getting her butt kicked. Which amuses us.

Last year she would swim a length of 25 yards, rest, talk, listen to her coaches, and then swim another 25. This year if they swim 25, they turn right around and turn it into 50 yards. Sometimes they have to swim 50 without a break. Or even 100 yards. M. is not the most efficient swimmer in the pool, and since each breath slows her way down, she’s working her ass off to get up-and-down the pool. I give her so much credit, though. She does not quit. She keeps chugging along, finishing each lap no matter how long it takes. And then she goes back for more.

What makes this funny and worth sharing is how she reacts after practice. Thursday night she swam with our neighbors while C. and I were at softball. When we got home, the families filled the fire pit and hung out for a bit. M. was dragging ass the whole time. Finally she sat down in a chair next to the parents and gave us this wiped out, sad kid face. I laughed and said, “M., you can never play poker.”

“What do you mean?” she whined.

“You can’t hide how you feel, babe. I can see you’re totally wiped out right now.”

“I’m not tired!” she whined back.

Moments later we looked over and her head was tipped against the frame of her chair and she appeared to be passed out.

“M., why don’t you go inside and go to bed?” I said.

Her eyes snapped open and she insisted she did not want to go to bed. Only problem was she was slurring her words. I laughed at her again.

“Did you drink some of mom’s wine?”

“Huh?”

Seriously, the girl was acting drunk.

We finally got her inside and in bed and she slept like a rock.

Then we did it all over again the next morning. Mid-day Friday she looked completely spent again. Even with another good night’s sleep, it took her until Sunday before she had all her energy again. And a couple days in the lake had her wiped out by Sunday evening.

This is good for her, though. She’s pushing herself to do things that she’s never done before. I keep telling her it’s going to hurt for awhile, but after a couple weeks she’s going to suddenly feel so much better and be more capable in the water. She seems to buy into that. Although she’s going to let us hear about it after every practice, I think.

Practice yesterday morning was cancelled due to the weather, and then we missed the evening session because of softball. The girls get back in the pool tonight[1] so I’m going to take it easy on them during the day. No 20-mile bike rides or anything like that today. The girls have an intra-squad meet on Thursday and then start swimming against other teams next week.

Our practice options are in the mornings on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, and evenings of M-Th. They ask that you attend at least four sessions of your choice each week. ↩

Last Meet

July 10, 2014 / DB

Man, talk about going out with a bang.

The girls wrapped up their swimming season Thursday at the annual invitational meet, which featured all six swimming teams that make up the conference they compete in. Fortunately, rather than being held in a four-lane, neighborhood pool, it was at a 10 lane high school pool.

Still, we arrived at 9:00 in the morning and walked out right at 4:00 pm. Believe it or not, everyone at the meet who were not first timers like us raved about how well run the meet was this year and how quickly it moved along. I hate to think what time we would have left had it not been well and quickly managed.

The girls all did well. C. had a couple times in the top half of her group of 40-50 swimmers, but didn’t crack the top ten. All the rest of the girls’ swims were in the lower quarter of total times. I didn’t share that with them, though. I just told them how they did in their heat. “You were third!” or “You were fifth but you passed two girls right at the end!” That was good enough for them.

I was a timekeeper in the 6 and under session. Those kids are fun to watch because they’re all kind of clueless. Some kids would stand there and stare at the crowd after the starting tone sounded. Others would jump in and then look around to see what direction they were supposed to go and what stroke they were supposed to use to get there. There were a few cryers who refused to get in this strange, new, giant pool. I’m going to miss seeing toothless L. in her swimming cap and goggles. Made me laugh every time I saw it at practice or a meet.

When each kid was done, we helped them out of the pool, pointed them in the right direction for the holding area, and told them they had done well. One girl looked at me and said, “Thanks. I’ve been practicing for years!” Cracked me up. She had no idea who I was but wanted to tell me all about it. I told the woman who was working my lane with me and she said, “Years? Was she swimming in the womb or something?”

Timing helped the first 45 minutes pass quickly. But once I was done it was another long day at the pool. It was a lovely day here in Indy, but I was thankful we were at an indoor pool and not dealing with the sun at all. Despite taking a bag of food for each girl, they ran out well before the end of the meet. Fortunately they were so distracted they weren’t whining about being hungry. Plus I promised them an early dinner at Dairy Queen on the way home.

One other funny thing from the day. There was this little kid, I’m pretty sure he was in the 6 and unders, who was rocking a Speedo. Despite being 6 at the oldest, he was already all muscular. I didn’t see him swim but I did see him in the gym where the kids were staged. There he had found a basketball and was dribbling around, going behind his back, crossing over between his legs, and then drilling high school 3-pointers. Again, he was 6. And wearing a Speedo. Safe to say this kid has some athletic ability and confidence already.

So now we’re done with swimming. It was a solid first year. The girls learned a lot and got better. We certainly learned a lot as parents, going through six weeks of practices and meets. It’s kind of a pain at times, but I think it was ultimately a positive experience for us all.

And now we can just go to the pool and hang out for the next month.

The Swimming Life

June 19, 2014 / DB

interminable |inˈtərmənəbəl|
adjective
endless (often used hyperbolically): we got bogged down in interminable discussions.

The girls have begun their competitive swimming careers. Their first meet was last Thursday, they swam again Tuesday night, and we have another meet scheduled for tonight.

(Edit: Well, we were supposed to swim tonight. But just before warm ups were set to begin a huge line of storms rolled in and the meet was cancelled. It’s been three hours since they pulled the plug and it’s still pouring and lightning. Good choice by the coaches.)

If asked to provide a single-word description of a kids swimming meet, I’m pretty sure I would use the word defined above.

Because when you’ve been sitting in a crowded swim deck for six hours, with sweat covering your entire body, ants crawling all over the ground because of all the food the kids have dropped, listening to wiped out kids whine about being tired or hungry or watching them act bizarrely because they’ve consumed too many cookies, hearing the lifeguards yell at the kids to get out of the shallow end for the 50th time, hearing other parents complain about the timekeepers/organizers/coaches/accommodations, wondering why other parents are secretly drinking beer and cocktails while you were dumb enough to volunteer to time a lane, well it sure seems like time is stretching on forever and you will never, ever get out of there alive.

OK, as the definition states, perhaps that is a little hyperbolic. But these things do kind of suck.

At our first meet, the girls had to be ready for warmups at 3:30. We walked out of the pool at 8:30 while the bigger kids were still wrapping up their relays. It being our first meet, I didn’t bring nearly enough snacks or drinks and only an emergency Wendy’s run prevented a total meltdown. Despite that, one daughter had a mini-meltdown and refused to swim her final relay.

Tuesday they swam against a much larger team – it had nearly 120 kids to our 60 or so – and things seemed worse. We pulled into our garage at exactly 10:00, six hours after we had left.

At least the girls seem to be enjoying it.

Poor L. has it the worst, as the Under 6 kids swim first and are done within 30 minutes. Then they get to sit around while the older age groups swim for hours and hours. She doesn’t seem to mind it too much, although there is a lot of asking, “How much longer do they have to swim?”

Swim meet days are just a battle from start-to-finish. They still have practice in the morning, so we’re up and at the pool by 8:30. Once we get home, I have to keep the girls occupied but mellow at the same time, so that the hours pass but they’re not burning all their energy. And then I have to carefully schedule multiple daytime meals so that they start the meet with enough fuel in their tanks. Despite that, all three girls usually claim to be starving at 5:00, right when the meet begins.

We hung out with some friends last weekend and shared our first swim meet experience with them. They laughed and said, “We have a firm rule in our house: no sports where the competitions are referred to as meets.”

Now they tell us.

We’ve spent hours on the soccer fields before. I know many of you have done the same for baseball, basketball, softball, ice skating, gymnastics, and assorted camps or school events. They’re all kind of horrible in their own way. But there’s something especially hellish about sitting at the edge of the pool, hot and tired and annoyed but unable to jump in to cool yourself and relax.

Kid Stuff

June 9, 2014 / DB

Our first full week of summer kicked off today. I was looking at the calendar last night and it sunk in how short summers are for kids these days. I remember getting out of school the week of Memorial Day most years and not going back until the day after Labor Day. A full three months to waste in swimming pools, on dusty Little League fields, in the backs on un-air conditioned cars, and watching bad reruns on TV. Trade offs…

The girls go full-bore into swimming this week. M. and C. only had one real practice last week before Friday’s time trials to determine the A and B teams for their age group. It was funny to watch them both jump in the water and quickly look to the lanes on either side of them to see how to do the breaststroke or butterfly. And then they pretty much did a modified freestyle anyway. They weren’t alone. There are a lot of kids who are already swimming year-round, but most of the kids are pretty limited in their knowledge of strokes. C. is fast, but wildly inefficient. M. isn’t as fast, and her technique isn’t great, but she holds it together better than C.. It will be fun to see if/how they grasp learning to do more than just stay afloat and propel yourself this summer.

L.’s group is basically glorified swimming lessons, although they still get to race in meets. In her time trial Friday she was in a lane where there was a ladder about 10 feet before the finish line. When she swam back and breaststroke, she swam to the ladder and popped right out of the pool. The coach who was swimming with her just shrugged her shoulders. I ran over the second time and let her know to swim all the way to the rope. She gave me a look like I was crazy.

Perhaps my favorite thing about swim team right now, though, is just watching L.. She’s missing her top two front teeth. She’s wearing a swim cap and goggles. When she’s done with a lap she leaps out of the water, mouth open to breath, and looks around to make sure everyone witnessed her brilL.nce. She looks like some kind of alien.

Their first meet is this Thursday. Should be fun.

Last Tuesday was Field Day at St. P’s. The kids were out-of-uniform and expected to bring a change of clothes as there were water games involved in the fun. Monday night, as we were helping the girls get their gear together, M. loudly protested putting her extra clothes in a plastic grocery bag and insisted that she use one of S.’s Athleta bags. When I suggested she knock it off and not act like a spoiled brat, she spat back at me, “It’s tacky to use a grocery bag!”

Tacky.

Jesus. We are in trouble.

In the interest of burying the lede, L. has apparently taught herself to read. Last week she picked up a book and started reading large chunks of it to me. She wasn’t always right, but she was often in the ballpark. And she insisted on plowing through it without any help from me. Since then she’s been pointing out more words that she knows to me. Then last night, as we sat down to knock out the library summer reading program’s 20 daily minutes, she read three books to me. Now most of these were simple books that she’s heard many times. So she could be working from memory as much as reading. But when the pattern of the words would change, she always caught the new words.

I remember the first time both M. and C. read a book to me on their own. In each case it was deep into their kindergarten years, after much practice and effort. And now here’s L. doing it before she even hits kindergarten and without us working with her at all.

Mind. Blown.

Reporter’s Notebook

February 19, 2014 / DB

We are in the heart of the winter sports season. Girls basketball sectionals were last weekend, and none of the teams I cover survived to regionals. I believe that’s the first time that has been the case since I started working for my paper. Boys basketball has two more weeks before sectionals begin. I covered the girls state swimming and diving meet last weekend and will head back in a week for the boys finals.

A few stories from the road that don’t involve possible drug raids.

I’ve been lucky to have several terrific basketball games this year. But perhaps the best was one I did back in mid-January. The best girls team in our county, CG, who got as high as #7 in the 4A rankings, traveled my direction to face a big conference rival, NC. NC jumped all over them early. It was 23-4 late in the first quarter as NC was hitting everything they threw up.

CG steadied themselves, hit a three to cut it to 16, and slowly worked their way back into the game. A 9-0 run made it an eight-point deficit at the half.

In the second half they kept battling but still trailed by 7 with 5:00 left. Then they started drilling threes and NC suddenly couldn’t buy a shot. CG took the lead on a deep 3 with 1:30 left, then hit all four free throws in the last minute to win by five.

It was such a ridiculous comeback that some of the CG girls were crying out of disbelief and happiness after the game. It was a fun game to write about, but also nerve-wracking. I had to change my mental pre-writing process about four times as the game ebbed and flowed.

I got the CG girls two more times before their season ended, including a win that clinched them a share of the conference title. That was a huge deal for them, as their conference has produced nine of the last 13 state champions, and one (mythical) national championship team. They were a fun team to watch, their girls are great to talk to, and their coach is probably my favorite across all sports. Damn shame they ran into their nemesis in sectionals and couldn’t get out.

My total margin factor is looking good thanks to a couple big wins by my teams. It is currently +44, and that’s with a 42-point loss in there. It could be worse. The same team that lost by 42 lost by 69 two nights later. Fortunately I was not at that game.

I’ve shared before that one of my favorite things to do before games and during breaks in the action is check out the track and field records boards posted in most gyms. I found an all-time winner last night while doing a boys game.

I was at a little 1A school. Most of the records were recent, but there were a couple that pushed back into the 80s. But two really stood out. The boys 800 record was set in 1956. And the boys 100 record was set in 1949. Nineteen forty-nine! By far the oldest record I’ve seen, which automatically makes it the coolest. My buddy Ed in ATX said the time (10.9) was in doubt because it was surely hand-clocked. He also suggested I track down the guy who set the record and see what he’s up to. If the home team was within our reporting area, I would absolutely do that.

As I said, I had the girls state swimming meet last week. It’s kind of amazing how good swimming is here in Indiana. Each time I cover a state meet, it seems like some kind of national record is broken. This year, my home ‘burb school, CHS, won their 28th straight state title, putting them one off the national record for most consecutive titles in one sport. I was not covering them, so that only filled a paragraph way down my story. Their 200 medley relay team also broke the national public school record, and two other swims of theirs were the second-fastest high school times on record. Some girls from California or Florida may go out and break those times next week, but it’s pretty cool that some kids from the Midwest are putting up numbers like that.

Finally, I was reflecting on how my process for writing has evolved over the six years I’ve been covering high school sports. I guess it’s not really the process that’s changed, but my inner writing mechanics have. The way my mind processes material during the game so I have a framework for what to write about afterward. How I identify what parts of the game are important so I can recall them when it’s time to write.

I remember the first couple years I wrote, I would struggle to find a way to get to 250-300 words, which is about the minimum my editor wants most nights. There were nights when I sat there, having tapped out a crappy lede, thrown in some stats, tried to highlight a key sequence or two, and after I added a quote, I was still sitting at 300 words.

I think my interviewing has gotten a little better, although I admit I’m still not great at those quick, post-game conversations. I get better material from coaches and players than I used to, though.

Now, even for a shitty game where there’s not a lot to write about, when I get through my first draft I’m usually well over 500 words. Not all of my stories are great. And our editor doesn’t ask for greatness when there are many nights where we’ll have 30-40 minutes to get him a complete box score and story. But comparing the stories I file today with the ones from my early days, I think the current ones are much better. I can always find an area where I could have written better or given more detail or explained a stat better. In general, though, I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do: giving people who were not at the game a feel for what happened.

So, anyone want to pay me handsomely for my mad journalistic skillz?

Weekend Notes

February 25, 2013 / DB

Some various and sundry notes about the weekend past.

I covered the boys high school state championship this weekend. As always, it was something else. The event itself is kind of tedious, especially when I only had one swimmer, who was in the finals of two events, to write about. Watching the crowd is the best. I believe I’ve written about it each time I’ve covered a swim meet, but the parents, coaches, and students in the crowd are absolutely nuts.

I covered both the prelims Friday and the finals Saturday. As I said, I only had one kid make it to the finals in two events on Saturday, and he finished fourth and fifth in his two races. Not bad for a sophomore. There were four other swimmers and three relay teams from my schools that made the consolation heats as well, but the focus of both stories was on the kid that advanced.

The last time I did the state meet, three years ago, a kid from a school up north won a bunch of races. I forget the exact number. By the end of the day, he had set the state record for most individual state titles and tied the record for most total titles (individual and relays). Or vice versa. Anyway, he has twin brothers that are currently juniors and swam over the weekend. One of the brothers set four new state record times, breaking his big bro’s record in one race. I talked with a reporter next to me who was covering that team. He said there is a sister in the family that graduated a year ago who won six state titles over her four years. Talk about good genes!

I pay attention to two auto races each year: the Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400. But I’ll admit I switched by the Daytona 500 yesterday just to check up on Danica. Her popularity waned here in Indy as she always seemed to be looking towards NASCAR, she never won, and she acting like a spoiled a-hole much of the time. But I still think it’s pretty cool what she’s doing. I’m not going to start sitting the girls down to watch her each week, but it is cool to have another woman showing them that no one can ever tell them they can’t do something.

Man, you know I don’t watch the Oscars, so don’t ask.

C. got to spend 45 minutes selling Girl Scout cookies with some of her troop at a grocery store yesterday. I dropped her off, made sure she was settled, and grabbed a cart to do my shopping for the week during her shift. After a few minutes, I could hear the girls (there were 4-5 there at a time) asking people if they wanted to buy cookies in sing-song voices. There was giggling and everything seemed to be going fine. Then, as I was on the far side of the store, I heard screaming, a clatter, a pause, and then belly laughing. I had a guess as to what had happened.

I finished my shopping, checked out, and walked over to the table. One of the girls incessantly tried to sell me cookies while I asked C. how things were going. C. was stacking up new boxes of cookies and just smiled at me and said, “Fine.” The cookie mom walked over and said that someone had leaned too hard on the card table the cookies were stacked on and it tipped over, sending them everywhere. Just like I thought.

C. had a good time. As I expected, she kind of hung back and let other girls talk try to make sales. Which is fine. Now that she’s experienced the rough-and-tumble world of grocery store cookie sales, I doubt she’ll ask me to do it again next year.

Later Sunday I was sitting there reading when I realized the Royals were playing a spring training game in Arizona. I remembered getting a message the previous week that my MLB.TV subscription had just renewed, so I opened the iPad, download At Bat, pulled up the game, and listened for a half inning. Listening to baseball in Indiana in the middle of February. These are great times, my friends.

Man, it’s been a cold but dry winter here. After that busy week around Christmas, when we got about a foot of snow total, and well more just to our south, we’ve only had an inch here, a half-inch there. There’s a chance of snow every day this week, but at this point it’s never supposed to pile up deeper than an inch. I wonder what it’s like to have a real, snowy winter?

Yes, I am trolling my Kansas City friends. Hang in there, brothers and sisters!

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